Sleeping Together
by Cha Oseye Tempest Thrain
Summary: Tony and Gibbs in the same tent (yet not slash...)


**Disclaimer:** Don't own NCIS, never have, never will. This is written for entertainment purposes only. I don't make money with this.

**Author's note**: Written before the season finale and thus set there. Thank you Kate98 and gaianarchy for betaing.

**Sleeping Together**

Orders were orders, and Marines follow orders, but… the snoring had been bad enough. Even the teeth grinding, the lip-smacking and the constant back and forth had been bearable, but now it was whimpers.

Clearly the man was in pain, hurting. Gibbs sighed. He wasn't good at this, never had been. He rolled over and did the only thing he could think to do. He reached out gently, silently… and smacked Tony on the head.

"Shut up, DiNozzo." As soon as Gibbs found out who, someone, somewhere was going to die. Training exercises were one thing. Insisting that the team, _his_ team needed to work on 'togetherness skills…' well, some bureaucrat must have lost more of his brain than the usual full-frontal lobotomy given to civil servants.

Gibbs was not a civil servant. Civil implied _civilian_. Gibbs had _Semper Fi_ tattooed straight down through his soul. The first word in NCIS was _Navy_, therefore none of the people on this insanely devised camping trip were civilians.

He shouldn't be sleeping with DiNozzo. McGee should have been sleeping with

DiNozzo for this exercise in uselessness. But McGee conveniently managed to break his leg, leaving him ineligible to attend. And he couldn't pair up DiNozzo and Kate… forget the sexism angle, Gibbs wanted _some_ sleep and the two of them would be bickering all night. Partly because Kate didn't truly understand DiNozzo, and partly because DiNozzo showed her nothing worth understanding.

There was a rustle of sleeping bag and Tony settled down. For a second.

"DiNozzo… I'm trying to sleep."

Tony growled. Gibbs checked his watch.

"Right." He reached into his pack and pulled out something he'd brought for precisely this time. The wrapper crinkled as he carefully tore it open.

"DiNozzo!"

"Yeah, boss?" Tony slurred the words, half in sleep and half in something else.

"Eat." Gibbs dropped the granola bar on Tony's chest.

"It's…"

"I am not waking up to you like that." If Tony could see Gibbs' glare, it might have been more effective.

"It's no worse than you without your coffee." Nevertheless, chewing sounds ensued.

"You might live through me without my coffee, DiNozzo. You get low blood sugar, and one of us is going to die."

"It'd be a knock-down, drag out, boss. And I might be the one coming out on top."

_That's what worries me_. When it came to Tony in a low-blood sugar state, anything was possible. You could kill him and he wouldn't recognise the fact until he had you dead, too. That was the sole reason Gibbs put up with the constant munching, snacking and at-any-moment meals.

It was also – oddly, one of the reasons Gibbs trusted DiNozzo. Normally, he had an innate suspicion about anyone that happy. Abby, dear as she was, clearly had mental problems. DiNozzo stayed happy by channelling all his rage, frustration and general irritability into one small part of his personality that shared many characteristics with a grenade, not the least of which being that the explosion tended to tear things into little pieces. Gibbs had no intention of letting that happen, at least not until there were plenty of trees between him and the blast. It was also the reason why he'd literally buried the hatchet. He couldn't keep custody of it… Tony could be quick and the only worse thing than Tony on low-blood sugar, was Tony on low-blood sugar and packing anything that resembled an axe. He couldn't leave it with Kate, either, or she'd harass DiNozzo and he'd kill her, or _he'd_ harass her, and she'd kill _him_. _Maybe_ if Abbs were on this trip… but she and Ducky didn't have to, they weren't part of the field team. Plus, Abby seemed to have talked Ducky into saying she had an allergy to sunlight or something. And since nobody in their right mind would expect Ducky to sleep on cold, hard ground… just in case he'd also pulled the 'relative needs caretaker' card out of the deck. The two of them were going to pay for this.

Tony finished the granola bar, and sighed. "I can't sleep."

"Sleep, DiNozzo."

"No… literally, I can't sleep. You woke me up and now my brain is buzzing."

"I didn't know you had one," Gibbs lied. Tony was a hell of a lot smarter than he pretended to be. He also seemed to be afraid of his intelligence. Gibbs didn't understand that. A runner wasn't afraid of being able to run, so why would somebody as smart as he sometimes suspected Tony of being, be afraid of being smart? "DiNozzo, how smart are you?"

"Boss? Is this a trick question?" Tony sounded suspicious, almost worried.

"Now, why would I ask _you_ a trick question, DiNozzo? Trick questions are reserved for those with the ability to _think_."

"Smarter than Kate."

_Smart answer._ It could either be taken literally – meaning Tony was _very_ smart – or as simply a continuation of the constant one-upmanship the two constantly engaged in. "I'm serious, DiNozzo."

Tony sighed. "Don't ask me that, boss. _Please_ don't ask me that."

Gibbs counted to five; he never quite made it to ten. 'Don't ask, Don't tell' wasn't supposed to apply to a person's brains. "DiNozzo…"

"Eighty-percent." Tony said nothing more, and there was a finality to the silence that indicated elaboration wasn't forthcoming, no matter how hard Gibbs decided to hit him.

_Eighty-percent of _what_, DiNozzo?_ Gibbs didn't bother saying it aloud. He'd only get more riddles in return or end up on assault charges. The stupid thing was, on paper DiNozzo looked normal. Solid B+ student, non-Ivy league education… if you ignored the personnel files, DiNozzo seemed to be a perfect… average.

Yet… he hadn't been kidding when he told Abby that DiNozzo did his best work at night. In an empty office with less people to watch him, Tony was like a different person. More… focussed. That was the sole reason Gibbs let him get away with late paperwork: DiNozzo couldn't always get in at night, and Gibbs would far rather get a late, night-time creation than try to dumb himself down enough to understand anything Tony produced during the day.

Which just went to prove why they shouldn't be here. Marines didn't make excuses. Marines didn't tolerate weakness and idiocy… the very fact that he _gave_ DiNozzo these breaks, that he let Abbs have her weirdness and Kate have her touchy-feely _feelings_ moments, that he didn't mind Ducky's stories or the fact that the man talked to dead people… this team had all the togetherness it needed. It not only functioned, it _flourished_. They had a better case-closure rate than any other team in NCIS.

Gibbs closed his eyes. Why did people think he didn't have a family? This team _was_ a family, with all the squabbles and abuse to prove it. They fought, they argued, they lied, they covered for each other… sooner or later Kate and Tony were going to kill each other and if that didn't spell family, Gibbs didn't know what would.

"Boss?" Tony sounded worried. "Don't tell anybody, okay? Especially Kate?"

"Relax, DiNozzo. Agent Todd isn't going to think you're smart."

Was he crazy, or did he hear a sigh of relief from the other side of the tent? If he was crazy, it was _because_ of the other side of the tent. What three wives couldn't accomplish, DiNozzo could pull off without even trying. Yet, while there were a billion others out there who were – in theory – better qualified, Gibbs wouldn't trade any dozen of them for DiNozzo. All the training, all the interrogation philosophy in the world couldn't get the results Tony sometimes did. People _talked_ to him. They relaxed around him, let their guard down. They despised him, they pitied him, they mocked him, they scorned him, but they never suspected him. Drop Kate or himself into a room, no introduction needed, and people clammed up, immediately sensing 'cop' or at the very least, 'miserable bastard.' Even people who _knew_ Tony was a cop, and _knew_ he was out to get them never suspected he could. It was as though he projected a 'stupid field' that overrode any logic that said he had to have _some_ brains and just made people think he was slower than paperwork for more spending money.

_You may not admire his methods, but you've got to love his results_. He told Kate that once. DiNozzo could get information out of damn near anybody. After two minutes, half the world was his friend.

Gibbs wondered if he could ever do that, dumb himself down so much that he became instantly likeable. He couldn't, he decided; being social wasn't worth the penalty.

_But what if…_ What if you were one of those people who _needed_ constant stimulation… what if you were an extrovert and had the horrible choice of being intelligent or being the center of attention? Maybe you either went weird like Abbs, or stupid like Tony, the only person Gibbs had ever met who managed to flunk an intelligence test.

Which was a clue, wasn't it? According to the results, DiNozzo should, in no way, be a functioning adult. According to the results, DiNozzo's brain was in a state conducive to listening to Ducky's stories. He had to have been _trying_. Trying at what, Gibbs wasn't sure, but he'd nearly succeeded in getting fired. That had taken a lot of string yanking and threats to fix.

Content now, Tony seemed to have gone back to sleep. Gibbs said a brief prayer of thanks for the silence and let himself drift into that half-wakeful state a Marine called 'rest.' DiNozzo was right about one thing: there was no coffee. Best he slept now, because tomorrow was going to be hell. Gibbs sighed. Oh, well… at least he'd still have something to hit. Brains or not… DiNozzo's head was always, _always_ a good target. _Thank God._


End file.
